Suzio to Seniors: 'Spending Is Out Of Control'

State Sen. Len Suzio (R-Middlefield, Rockfall) met with a group of seniors at the Middlefield Community Center on Wednesday to hear their thoughts and concerns on issues, including taxes, state spending and healthcare.

The meeting was part of Suzio's “Senator on Your Sidewalk” series, which will continue today when he meets with voters at Lyman Orchards from 4-6 p.m.

The Republican, who also represents voters in Middletown, Meriden and Cheshire (Dist. 13), is preparing for a special legislative "Jobs Session" on Oct. 26 which will focus on ways to spur the state's economy.

Suzio told the group he's working to stop what he says is thirty years worth of out-of-control spending.

"There's this dynamic, this kind of unholy alliance that exists between the federal and state government. The state government can't stop spending because it will forfeit the federal money. The feds say, 'Well, we can't stop spending because the states need the money from us,' and they wonder why we can't stop spending," he said.

Middlefield resident Catherine Carlson was one of several seniors who said they are concerned about jobs and activities for young people.

"You want the kids off the streets, but you're taking this away from them?" Carlson said about the state's to scrap sports programs in technical schools to help reduce the budget -- a plan that was eventually dropped.

Suzio warned that negotiations earlier this year between the state and unions only delayed a financial crisis.

"The whole system is about to collapse. There needs to be systemic change," he said "Right now it's totally lacking in common sense."

Suzio said current state employee benefits were unsustainable, to which one senior in the group replied, "We don't even get dental benefits."

Maria Thody, a Durham resident, said energy prices have become an enormous burden to seniors as well.

"We're on fixed incomes and its hard for us to do anything about it. When you go to put oil in your home, I mean I just got 150 gallons which is over $500. You can't even fill it anymore," she explained.

The group supported to cap the state's gas tax.

The freshman senator also said he opposes the -- a proposal by Gov. Dannel P. Malloy to invest nearly $300 million in the Jackson Laboratory for Genomic Medicine at the University of Connecticut Health Center campus in Farmington.

"It's a $300 million giveaway of your tax money to a company that will never pay Connecticut a nickle of taxes," Suzio said. "The deal is predicated on only 300 job and we're going to give them $300 million for that. It's just unbelievable policy and this is the kind of crazy thinking that's going on at the capitol."

Sen. Suzio lays out his opposition to the Jackson Lab deal in an Op-Ed in Meriden .